Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. A new deal for European defence. Implementation roadmap for Communication COM (2013) 542; Towards a more competitive and efficient defence and security sector

In July 2013, the Commission put forward the Communication “Towards a more competitive and efficient defence and security sector” as a contribution to the European Council of December 2013. It also announced a detailed roadmap with concrete actions and timelines for the areas defined in that Communication. The present report fulfils this commitment.

The European Council, in its Conclusions of December 2013 which also endorsed the 25th November 2013 Council Conclusions, welcomed the Communication and decided to review progress in all relevant areas in June 2015. The Commission takes the European Council Conclusions as the basis to pursue the following objectives:
- an Internal Market for Defence where European companies can operate freely and without discrimination in all Member States;
- an EU-wide security of supply regime where armed forces can be sure to be sufficiently supplied in all circumstances no matter in which Member State their suppliers are established;
- a Preparatory Action on CSDP-related research to explore the potential of a European research programme which, in the future, may cover both security and defence. This is in addition to exploiting all possible synergies between existing civil and defence research; and
- an industrial policy which fosters competitiveness of European defence industries and helps to deliver at affordable prices all the capabilities Europe needs to guarantee its security.

To pursue these objectives, this Report establishes a roadmap for the activities set out in the Communication. It includes a broad variety of actions from different policies, which are nevertheless often interrelated: improving security of supply between Member States, for example, will facilitate cross-border market access for defence companies; better standardisation will foster interoperability and market openness; common certification will reduce costs and enhance industry’s competiveness, etc. Taken together, all these actions will contribute to making the European defence and security sector more efficient and thereby strengthen the Union’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)387: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:387:FIN

ESO: Background information: A New Deal for European Defence: Commission proposes industrial action plan http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-a-new-deal-for-european-defence-commission-proposes-industrial-action-plan/

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